Ju-das. 1) Called "Judas Iscariot." One of the Twelve Apostles;
betrayer of Jesus. 2) One who betrays under the appearance of
friendship.

Who was Judas? Why did he do what he did? If we could converse with
him today, what would he say? What if, in a way, a conversation
could take place with the man who helped the Romans execute the son
of God? What if a scroll is discovered in the Dead Sea, written in
the first century, long before the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John, detailing the life of Jesus from Judas's point of view?
How would this document fit into the structures of the church? How
would it change our views of not only Judas, but Jesus, and more
than that, Christianity itself? Such is the premise of Simon
Mawer's thought-provoking yet flawed novel, THE GOSPEL OF
JUDAS.

The man charged with unearthing the validity and importance of this
document is Father Leo Newman. His life is already in turmoil even
before the discovery. He's middle aged, living in Rome, teaching
English to make ends meet and he's falling in love with a married
woman. He's beginning to have doubts about his vocation. Should he
be a man of the cloth if he's in love with a woman already
betrothed? There is also a family tragedy from the distant past
that haunts him, and there are flashbacks to his mother's
experiences in Rome during World War II. And, of course, there's
the incendiary text.

Mawer, author of MENDEL'S DWARF and THE BITTER CROSS, writes with
touches of Graham Greene, Umberto Eco, and Michael Ondaatje. It is
a story about loss of faith and what it means to believe. But the
story has some rough patches. Firstly, the reader has to wait until
the end of the book to get to the mystery of what is in the scroll
and what it means to the church. Secondly, the various plot lines
and different writing angles confuse and confound the reader who
expects a more archeological, Biblically-based novel (such as THE
LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST by Nikos Kazantzakis and more recently
QUARANTINE by Jim Crace). In particular, the flashback story of
Leo's mother's tragic love affair in wartime Rome slows the
movement of the plot and pulls the reader away from the main theme
and drama of the story --- the manuscript.

All in all, THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS is a hit-and-miss novel. It is
well-researched, intelligent and thought-provoking; however, some
of those thoughts are "I thought this was a story about Judas.
Where is it and why are we getting this love story instead?" The
story fares best when it remains a religious-based thriller in
which the scroll that played a vital role in the lives of Judas and
Jesus is brought into a new and startling light.